


It's all the signs.

by JaceRMontague



Series: 30k in 30 days [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Deaf, Deaf Character, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 06:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8479138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaceRMontague/pseuds/JaceRMontague
Summary: I was asked to do a prequel for Feel the Music and so this is it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've never done a prequel before so i don't know if this sucks or not?
> 
> It's pre-Feel the Music right up until the end when the headphones from that story is mentioned.

Regina huffed she stumbled over the sign language she was practising. She was getting increasingly angry at herself; it was easy enough, she’d signed it time and time again in her bedroom while she was teaching herself how to sign. She’d taught herself letter after letter, then word after word and finally sentence after sentence over the last few months until she’d become fairly adept in the language. Well, as adept as you could be after seven months of signing secretly in her bedroom after learning from YouTube tutorials. She could, at the very least, say what she was so desperate to say and could carry out a basic conversation without thinking about it too much.

Now she felt confident enough sign to Emma. Though now she was stood in the corridor during her free period waiting for Emma’s study hall to end so they could go to home together, she kept stumbling. Her hands weren’t doing what she wanted them to do and it was frustrating her to no end. Before she could calm herself down the bell rang around the room, bouncing off the walls and startling Regina. She tucked her hands into her pockets and waited as the rest of Emma’s class streamed past.

Emma always left the room last, it was partly because Emma always felt safer when she was walking behind everyone else when she was on her own, since she couldn’t hear people coming up from behind her she’d stand behind everyone else and watch them. Also, Regina knew the blonde usually stayed behind class for five or ten minutes, talking to her student support. It was the only time in school that Emma felt confident enough to sign, if the rest of the class were there they’d stop what they were doing and watch her sign. She knew it was because they were interested but it still put her on edge. When the class wasn’t there she’d talk to the student support. It was the only real time she could communicate through sign language. She was once more between foster families and was in a group home. No one at her current home knew how to sign. She could lip read and was three months away from turning eighteen and ageing out of the system so she didn’t really care. She was barely at the home anyway, she spent most of her afternoons in the library with Regina or at the brunette’s home, doing work there. She couldn’t do her school work at the group home because a few of the more troublesome, tormenting children there had realised early on that Emma couldn’t hear them coming up behind her at the desk in the lounge, would take her work and run.

Regina had asked Emma to move in with her when Emma turned eighteen. Regina had been living on her own since she was sixteen; her father had died and had left his mansion and his fortune to his daughter. She didn’t care much for either. She missed having someone she loved in the house with her. She missed her father full stop. The only reason Regina herself hadn’t been pulled into the foster system was because her estranged mother was still alive and had told child protection services that she would move back into the mansion to look after Regina. She never did. Regina didn’t care. If her mother had moved in Regina would have moved out. Cora had still turned up every now and again to ensure her daughter was alive and well. And not in the foster system. Cora and her daughter may not get along but she’d be damned if her only daughter had ended up in the foster system. As soon as Regina turned eighteen Cora stopped her visits, but still transferred enough money for a family of five to live off into Regina’s bank every month.

Regina wanted Emma to be safe and to have a home. She’d have been living with her girlfriend for months now if it wasn’t for the system that Emma was stuck in.

Regina leant against the wall behind her, waiting for Emma to leave the class. It had been almost fifteen minutes before Emma left the room. She saw Regina and grinned.

‘Afternoon’

‘Hey stranger.’

Regina took Emma’s hand in her own and the two walked to their lockers. By the time the two of them reached them the corridors had been emptied, everyone had rushed out at the prospect of having the weekend to themselves and no one was willing to hang around the school on a Friday afternoon. That was, no one except Emma and Regina.

As Emma closed her locker after pushing her books onto the top shelf and pulling the books she’d need for homework over the weekend out and shoving them into her bag, she felt Regina stomp twice.

She looked up, slightly confused, there was never anything urgent enough that Regina couldn’t wait until Emma had turned back around to face Regina of her own accord.

‘Yes?’ Emma asked, looking up at her girlfriend.

She was about to start watching Regina’s lips when Regina’s hands caught her attention.

Emma felt her eyes begin to well up as Regina began signing in front of her.

‘I love you.’ Regina signed to perfection, she didn’t stumble or mess up and her hands were trembling. She didn’t think she’d ever been so relieved about anything.

‘I love you, too.’ Emma signed in reply, her grin was almost face-splitting.

‘How was study hall?’ Regina continued signing.

Emma was stunned.

‘It- It was good.’

She couldn’t hold her amazement in long enough to continue the charade of a normal conversation.

‘When did you learn to sign?’ Emma asked aloud, in case Regina didn’t know what the question was.

‘I’ve been teaching myself since we first became friends. I watch YouTube videos when I’m home alone.’ Regina signed. She knew that this was going to be the one question Emma asked and she was determined to have an answer for it.

Emma could feel herself glowing. No one had learnt to sign for her. The foster families she’d been with when she was younger were able to sign because they already had deaf children or partners. Never had anyone had a reason to learn Emma’s language and now Regina had taught herself. She’d taught herself just so she could tell the blonde that she loved her.

Emma didn’t think she’d ever felt so loved.

‘I mean,’ Regina continued ‘I’m nowhere near as good as you. Nor as fast. And I don’t know how to sign everything yet. But I’m getting there.’ She finished, a huge smile painted on her own face when she saw how big Emma’s smile was.

‘I can’t believe you learnt to sign for me.’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘No one else has.’ Emma admitted. Regina could tell that this was hard for Emma to admit – her signing had slowed down slightly.

Regina stopped signing and pulled Emma closer to her, she kissed the blonde softly before stepping back once more.

‘That’s their loss, then.’ Regina said, her arms being wrapped around Emma’s waist meant that she couldn’t sign it.

After a few minutes of being wrapped around one another in the empty corridor the two of them stepped out of the embrace and walked side by side, this time though, they didn’t hold hands as they walked. They were too busy having a conversation. By the time the two of them had reached Regina’s mansion on the other side of town an hour later they were still signing, Regina had only stumbled a few times, Emma laughing when a mistake was made though it was never in a malicious was and she’d always help teach Regina the right sign whenever a mistake was made or Regina wasn’t sure how to sign a word.

Emma was incredibly impressed that Regina had taught herself as much as she had done, it had taken Emma herself years to get as far as Regina had. But then again, she reasoned with herself, Emma had been learning to speak, sign and lipread at the same time. It was a lot to take on for a child. Also, she didn’t have YouTube tutorials or a reason to learn the language so quickly. Sure, she wanted to communicate but she’d not needed to learn so fast.

She couldn’t believe that she was Regina’s inspiration to learn another language.

She felt warm and comforted whenever she thought about it. She tried not to think about it too often because she was certain it made her blush, even years later when Regina had given her the headphones that allowed her to feel music.

Even after all these years Regina was finding ways to make Emma feel special and important.

After all these years, the first thing Regina had signed to Emma was as true as it had ever been and still made Emma feel the same way it did when Regina had told her she’d loved her by the lockers after class.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone has any prompts, let me know! I'm want to post a story a day for the month. I was going to do 30K in 30 days but it feels like i might hit 50 or 60k if I keep writing like this every day but to do this I need prompts!
> 
> As always, all comments and kudos are appreciated. 
> 
> Let me know what you think :) 
> 
> I hope you're all having a wonderful day.


End file.
